Portland City Council

Portland City Council candidate Tina Smith responds by email about the League of Young Voters endorsement:

I am very disappointed with The League's endorsements but I am honestly not surprised. They have been making a trend out of getting away from their original "non-partisan" and "making young people players in the political process" mission for quite some time now. This had a great deal to do with why I'm no longer working there.

Chris Busby at The Bollard has some advice for candidates regarding political signs, including "If you're running for the school board, don't misspell common words on your campaign signs."

School Board candidate Anna Trevorrow made that mistake when she tried to rhyme her last name with "tommorrow" on her campaign signs, which are meant to look like a yellow school bus.

Busby also faults at-large city council candidate Tina Smith for placing a sign inside a public art installation.

Smith may have more to worry about than angry artists, however. The League of Young Voters, a Portland-based civic group, has released their endorsements and Smith isn't on the list. The League instead endorsed her opponent, incumbent mayor Ed Suslovic, explaining that Smith's "lack of experience with strategic planning, policy, and budgets would not make her an effective advocate on the Council."

This wouldn't be a big deal, except that Smith has been an organizer with the League for the past four years and has based her entire campaign on that work.

The Portland City Council voted unanimously on Monday to indefinitely postpone a plan to close 10 of the city's 16 polling sites. A 10-member panel will now study the need for any reductions and report back in January.

The city is dealing with a difficult budget situation and is looking to cut costs, but as John Bartholomew of Maine Common Cause recently said in a release, "Accidentally disenfranchising voters in a presidential election year will cost the city far more in terms of public trust than it would save in dollars."

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